UIDAI may go for eye scan, fingerprints of rural population

NEW DELHI: The Unique Identification Authority of India may take all 10 finger prints besides an eye scan of all residents in rural India to avoid loss of physical identification due to harsh working conditions.

According to officials, one of the problems that the UIDAI is trying to counter is the erosion of fingerprints of people who are involved in heavy physical labour or eye sight being affected over a period of time.

Current deliberations are on to see what kind of biometrics should the Authority ask for before providing a 16-digit unique number to each resident of the country, they said.

A biometrics committee led by BK Gairola, director general of National Informatics Centre, has been set up to figure out the options that could be used for the purpose.

The committee is looking at taking all 10 fingerprints or going in for an eye scan of people besides some other measures for feeding their biometrics in the UIDAI database, the officials said.

While in metros and urban areas, the agency could go in for either one mode of biometrics, it could be forced to do two different biometrics for rural India, they said.